But surrender is not a strategy; it is the profound absence of strategies. It's waking up to realize that all the strategies have failed and we're plum out of new ones. Surrender happens when...

Paradoxically, many people find that surrendering in this way allows them to feel more in control of their lives (Cole & Pargament, 1999). This might be because surrender is still a choice we make.

Surrender vs. Control Strategies. Surrender sounds lame to many people, or perhaps scary. It’s the opposite of what we are constantly trying to do – we are always seeking control, because we don’t like uncertainty. At all. We want to control our day, so we have routines, schedules, systems.

Sometimes it is only when we surrender to the fact that we might not get something that it actually floats into our lives. And if you don’t get what you want, surrendering allows room for something else, something wonderful, to enter in place of what you originally desired.

Things go much more smoothly when you surrender control—when you let things happen instead of making them happen. Here's how to let go.